The Rock needs an iconic film

[BisexualMMA]

Cinematography? Insane

Dialogue and sense of humor? Fantastic

Physicality? Classic Rock.

Unless you expect his classic film to look like a serious realism drama or historical period piece, it's easily his most effective comedy vehicle

What was the fantastic dialogue? I'm having trouble remembering any memorable lines, other than Wahlberg repeatedly saying he believes in fitness.

Physicality = Classic Rock. What does that mean, the role is iconic because the Rock was in top shape? His physique was on form, but as to action or stunts, I again don't recall anything noteworthy or memorable.

Sense of humor... Some of it worked. Some if was what I consider "typical Michael Bay bullshit" like the whole angle with Rebel Wilson. If Bay doesn't have multiple nagging, yelling and arguing black people as "comic relief," he has to make up for it with fat chick shtick. Some of the humor worked though. Tonally, I thought the movie was weird as fuck, though, mixing a real life murder with slapsticky hijinx. I still don't know for sure if Michael Bay was trying to make a black comedy, or just randomly patched together scenes of a true crime story with his go-to stock jokes that he throws into most of his action movies.

Cinematography? It was pretty good. It certainly wasn't insanely good. There were some nice shots, but I'm not comparing it to Kubrick or Ridley Scott. I didn't really walk away with any strong visual memories of the film.

 

[Magooglie]

Rock's Rocky was his wrestling career.

 

[MacDuffle]

What was the insane dialogue? I'm having trouble remembering any memorable lines, other than Wahlberg repeatedly saying he believes in fitness.

Physicality = Classic Rock. What does that mean, the role is iconic because the Rock was in top shape? His physique was on form, but as to action or stunts, I again don't recall anything noteworthy or memorable.

Sense of humor... Some of it worked. Some if was what I consider "typical Michael Bay bullshit" like the whole angle with Rebel Wilson. If Bay doesn't have multiple nagging, yelling and arguing black people, he has to make up for it with fat chick shtick. Some of the humor worked though. Tonally, I thought the movie was weird as fuck, though, mixing a real life murder with slapsticky hijinx. I still don't know for sure if Michael Bay was trying to make a black comedy, or just randomly patched together scenes of a true crime story with his go-to stock jokes that he throws into most of his action movies.

Cinematography? It was pretty good. It certainly wasn't insanely good. There were some nice shots, but I'm not comparing it to Kubrick or Ridley Scott. I didn't really walk away with any strong visual memories of the film.

The film is dripping with ironized hubris

The opening sequence is a forward track of wahlberg doing situps suspended from a wall two stories up

Not exactly a common shot

The film glorifies its characters as they slowly rack up violence, crime and moral grey areas until they are literally chopping up body parts and grilling them in full view of their neighbors, again comedic irony rarely seen in comedies that have a temdency to moralize every last detail. Pain and Gain is filmed (especially the music) in a way that glosses over the decisions of its characters to mimic and poke fun at the charismatic rationalizing done by the real guys the film was based on - they are effective physical trainers, motivators, and people pleasers: this shapes the tone of the film intensely, as the violence slowly creates friction with their charisma. It's a rarely seen dynamic that is not unlike Man Bites Dog where the character Remy is a delightful presence, yet tests the audience's investment in him repeatedly until his behavioral justification is shredded, and he becomes hard to watch.

Pain and Gain transfers that same dissonance between charisma and manipulation to an action comedy, which is pretty advanced tonality for a movie about criminal bodybuilders

As for the Rock's physicality, he undersells his character in every line delivery to reflect his emotional and religious vulnerability. His character can't recognize when he is being taken advantage of, and that 'gentle giant' approach works really well when juxtaposed against his Rock physique

The Rundown and many other films use his physicality as strength of character, while Pain and Gain makes him almost an unwilling participant in his physicality. It's smart characterization.

 

[MacDuffle]

As for the writing in Pain and Gain

"Why'd you make me do that to you, Victor? I have responsibilities! Jesus Christ himself, has blessed me with many gifts! One of them is knocking someone the fuck out!"

"Lugo: I have no sympathy for people who squander their gifts. It's sickening. It's worse than sickening. It's unpatriotic"

"If you're willing to do the work, you can have anything. That's what makes the U.S. of A great. When it started, America was just a handful of scrawny colonies. Now, it's the most buff, pumped-up country on the planet. That's pretty rad."

Do you see the irony yet

 

[BisexualMMA]

The film is dripping with ironized hubris

The opening sequence is a forward track of wahlberg doing situps suspended from a wall two stories up

Not exactly a common shot

The film glorifies its characters as they slowly rack up violence, crime and moral grey areas until they are literally chopping up body parts and grilling them in full view of their neighbors, again comedic irony rarely seen in comedies that have a temdency to moralize every last detail. Pain and Gain is filmed (especially the music) in a way that glosses over the decisions of its characters to mimic and poke fun at the charismatic rationalizing done by the real guys the film was based on - they are effective physical trainers, motivators, and people pleasers: this shapes the tone of the film intensely, as the violence slowly creates friction with their charisma. It's a rarely seen dynamic that is not unlike Man Bites Dog where the character Remy is a delightful presence, yet tests the audience's investment in him repeatedly until his behavioral justification is shredded, and he becomes hard to watch.

Pain and Gain transfers that same dissonance between charisma and manipulation to an action comedy, which is pretty advanced tonality for a movie about criminal bodybuilders

That's a well-put and perhaps charitable interpretation. I don't know if Michael Bay deserves artistic credit or not for "not moralizing" the events of a movie. He is an auteur visually, but with respect to the subtler details of characters or tone or storytelling or morality, I'm not sure he knows what he's doing at all, let alone able to impress a "moral style" upon his films.

I mean, take the whole scene about the Romeo and Juliet law in Transformers 4. What was he trying to achieve there, on any level? It ended up being a Michael Bay bullshit-dialogue-as-comic-relief scene, and if he was doing anything related in any way to morality, he seemed to be using the scene to justify his own sexualization of an underage character in the movie.

I don't know. Do you think Michael Bay could have delivered a scene about barbecuing hands in a serious fashion if he wanted to? Maybe. I really don't know if I could view barbecued hands in a Michael Bay movie as anything other than quasi-farcical.

I mean, the movie worked overall for the most part, but I don't know if it's because Michael Bay struck some careful balance regarding the intricacies of tone and characters. I think it's more likely that he just threw it all on camera and it worked well enough in the end.

 

[Lights Out 101]

I don't think Rock gives a fuck tbh

 

[DM1982]

As has been mentioned, he almost had it (something iconic) in The Rundown - he looked a million dollars in that tan suit and he still had a head of hair






Movie just wasn't quite good enough - starts off well, but becomes predictable and unremarkable. I think it could have been his 'Transporter' like for Jason Statham, but it wasn't to be.

TS is spot on, it's all there for Johnson, just there has been no great screenwriter/director to give him the great film/role to put him up with the greats.

His greatest work will always be as The Rock for WWF/WWE

Spoiler

He needs to lose a ton of weight, get a salt n pepper wig, and play Barack Obama in the movie of his life - Obama. He's got the voice, the charisma and he's learning his craft - why on earth does Hollywood not have a biopic of Obama's life in development?

 

[Deleted member 110072]

I am kind of supprised he's not turned up in something Marvel based, the more over the top end of their outputGuardians, Thor, Antman) is probably what he's best suited to.

In a way though I was argue that the LACK of an iconic role actually highlights the strength of his draw, these days pretty much all other big names(bar maybe Cruise) need a certain iconic role/s to draw interest, he draws interest reguardless and that probably means he's earning big bucks for everything he's in.

 

[MacDuffle]

That's a well-put and perhaps charitable interpretation. I don't know if Michael Bay deserves artistic credit or not for "not moralizing" the events of a movie. He is an auteur visually, but with respect to the subtler details of characters or tone or storytelling or morality, I'm not sure he knows what he's doing at all, let alone able to impress a "moral style" upon his films.

I mean, take the whole scene about the Romeo and Juliet law in Transformers 4. What was he trying to achieve there, on any level? It ended up being a Michael Bay bullshit-dialogue-as-comic-relief scene, and if he was doing anything related in any way to morality, he seemed to be using the scene to justify his own sexualization of an underage character in the movie.

I don't know. Do you think Michael Bay could have delivered a scene about barbecuing hands in a serious fashion if he wanted to? Maybe. I really don't know if I could view barbecued hands in a Michael Bay movie as anything other than quasi-farcical.

I mean, the movie worked overall for the most part, but I don't know if it's because Michael Bay struck some careful balance regarding the intricacies of tone and characters. I think it's more likely that he just threw it all on camera and it worked well enough in the end.

I think you are projecting a justifiable dislike of Bay rooted in his other films onto Pain and Gain, as if he's some Tarentino-esque auteur filmmaker who wrote the film and developed its tone personally. Bay didn't adapt the magazine articles that inspired the film, or write the dialogue. He didn't come up with the characterization of The Rock being religious or Lugo being a confident manipulator, or the crimes taking a turn for the worse. Those are characterizations from the adaptation of real people, even though there was clearly a ton of dramatic/artistic license taken with the real subject matter.

I would have agreed if i thought the character dynamics were accidental, but I think the story structure was solid before Bay touched a thing

 

[BisexualMMA]

I think you are projecting a justifiable dislike of Bay rooted in his other films onto Pain and Gain, as if he's some Tarentino-esque auteur filmmaker who wrote the film and developed its tone personally. Bay didn't adapt the magazine articles that inspired the film, or write the dialogue. He didn't come up with the characterization of The Rock being religious or Lugo being a confident manipulator, or the crimes taking a turn for the worse. Those are characterizations from the adaptation of real people

How's the best way to put this. I think the structure of the Pain & Gain story was solid enough that Michael Bay couldn't fuck it up. What was on the page was an interesting enough, easy to follow story, and Michael Bay walked in and set up some decent Michael Bay shots - I am guessing without a lot of forethought as to relative tone or order of the scenes - and in the end, it all came together well enough.

The Rebel Wilson stuff has Michael Bay's fingerprints all over it though, from conception of the idea to the final cut.

I think it's an all right movie. But I also think that in someone else's hands, it could have been something like American Hustle or Blow or The Wolf of Wall Street or American Psycho, which I consider to be superior films.

 

[MacDuffle]

How's the best way to put this. I think the structure of the Pain & Gain story was solid enough that Michael Bay couldn't fuck it up. What was on the page was an interesting enough, easy to follow to story, and Michael Bay walked in and set up some of decent Michael Bay shots - I am guessing without a lot of forethought as to relative tone or order of the scenes - and in the end, it all came together well enough.

The Rebel Wilson stuff has Michael Bay's fingerprints all over it though, from conception of the idea to the final cut.

I think it's an all right movie. But I also think that in someone else's hands, it could have been something like American Hustle or Blow, which I consider to be superior films.

100% agreed that if anything, the secondary characters like the kidnapping victim and Rebel Wilson undermine the film with some seriously stereotypical zany character ham, but that didn't affect The Rock's character at all - every scene he is involved in revolves around his character's perspective and decision making. He occupies an entire film to himself as the unfortunate manipulatable patsy to a larger plot, with a narrow read on what he is part of. It's a really cool subversion of his usual 'tough' guy roles and is rather dark in its religious rationalizing to boot.

I just don't see a more complex role in The Rock's filmography. I was really impressed with that character over all his others.

 

[MacDuffle]

...also just dropping into random clips from Pain and Gain, I think it really demonstrates that it's technically solid in execution as films go, with everything from the music accompanying to the shot composition and lens-flarey modernity



Hardly an amateurish comedy when it isn't following Rebel Wilson farting around

Fast and Furious it is not

 

[Teppodama]

Put him in the role of Hannibal and make a movie about his campaign against the Romans.

 

[WalkenWouldOwn]

 

[BisexualMMA]

...also just dropping into random clips from Pain and Gain, I think it really demonstrates that it's technically solid in execution as films go, with everything from the music accompanying to the shot composition and lens-flarey modernity



Hardly an amateurish comedy when it isn't following Rebel Wilson farting around

Fast and Furious it is not

I dunno man... Watch this depiction of a real-life murder:



Bay just can't help himself.

Morally conflicted, religious and innocent Rock is still too cool to not walk away from an explosion in slow motion.

 

[Strange King]

He definitely has a bit of that 'Ryan Reynolds' thing going on where he is meant to be a strong ripped lead but is a bit soft/jokey. Reynolds found his place with Deadpool and Van Wilder and just fully embraced it, but maybe Rock can harden the fuck up and make it work? I think he is definitely charismatic enough and he can still be a domineering physical force. Just needs a role that leaves the comedy at the door and is setup to make him shine.

Closest thing he had was Hercules but they still turned that into a "big funny guy" film.

Hercules was shit

 

[Strange King]

The Rundown is a classic that is replayed on basic cable all the time along with Walking Tall.

Faster is his "oh shit this guy can act in movies the Academy might respect" moment

Those two are really good movies but are not classics like OP mentioned

 

[Amerikuracana]

No holds barred II

 

[minute bull]

I like how The Rock needs an iconic, defining role.

His name is Dwayne.

 

[plataoplombo]

Probably needs to make some trilogy movie where it's dark and gritty. No joking or smiling, just blood and violence.